Sunday, March 07, 2010

I will be back - will she?......

Nobody really knows how many tiger sharks have been netted in Scottburgh*) during the last two years or so; all I have heard is that the numbers of the Aliwal Shoal tigers have gone down considerably.

There were some fantastic characters among the tiger girls of Aliwal Shoal: "Karin", aka "Dartborad", and "Mathilda", both camera lovers, "Sabine", "Snowflake", not quite grown-up, and much to my and others' chagrin killed in the Scottburgh nets, and, my favorite, "Ella", quite large (4 + meters), elegant as befits an elderly lady, and most gentle. In fact, I have never encountered a more gentle tiger shark - and mind you, I was also able to closely befriend serene "Emma", the legendary Tiger Beach resident, so I guess I can tell.

I will be travelling to South Africa in less than a week, and am, as you can imagine, very excited about meeting good friends: Jifa (= Jean-Francois Avenier) and "Machin", his new husky, the Addisons, Fiona Ayerst, Hanli Prinsloo, Fred Buyle, William Winram, Julie Anderson, Olivia Jones, Lesley Rochat - not to mention the striped ladies, including "Ella", as I very much hope.

*) The shark nets have to be removed, in South Africa and the rest of the world.Read why.

Disclaimer

Please be aware of the fact that diving with sharks can be potentially dangerous. Do NOT closely interact with sharks, touch them, feed them unless you are very experienced and know exactly how to interpret their body language. While it might look easy and harmless to interact with sharks the way we do, we do NOT encourage this type of underwater activity.